For this article, we’re focusing on Community Work Supervisors, our team members who spend their days at maraes, schools, and a range of other places around the community, supervising groups of people on a community work sentence.

What do Community Work Supervisors do?

Community Work Supervisors work on a range of projects in the community, supervising groups of up to eight people who have been sentenced to a community work sentence.

They work with the people on sentence, teach them new skills needed for the project and ensure health and safety. They also build strong relationships with the community organisations that they have partnered with for the project.

“We've got a few roles. We've got to keep the community safe. It's also about role modelling pro-social behaviour with the guys. Teaching them the right way to do things. A lot of it is teamwork.” – Community Work Supervisor

What makes a good Community Work Supervisor?

It’s important for Community Work Supervisors to have the right attitude and mentality. The role is all about working with people, so having good communication skills, a positive approach and treating people as you’d like to be treated is key. Resilience, teamwork, and a sense of community-mindedness are also valuable.

“You need to be a positive person, a supportive person, who doesn’t judge.” – Community Work Supervisor

Connection with community

One of the benefits of working as a Community Work Supervisor is the strong sense of connection it can give you to your community. By supporting offenders to give back to the community, Community Work Supervisors are also giving back themselves. They get to build relationships with different organisations, learn about different projects, and see the results of their work within the community.

“In my role I am fortunate to meet outstanding organisations doing amazing work in their communities. I see many great outcomes from projects throughout the local area, which I find very satisfying.” – Community Work Supervisor

Varied projects

The projects that Community Work Supervisors work on can vary widely and include some unique community projects. For example, one of the community work projects that Corrections partners with others on involves creating blankets out of chip packets. Community work has also had a role in supporting emergency response – for example during the 2023 floods in Auckland.

“We do gardens. We do property maintenance, with skills like painting, mowing lawns, weed eating. Projects might come up within a hall at a school, like making a placard. We're open to a whole range of different things.” – Community Work Supervisor